In our video recap of the Transformation Project Walk, Katy Mike Smaistrla, Education and Volunteer Coordinator at Earthways Center, explains the structure above, which a Construction Careers Center shop class built as part of their workshop with the Pulitzer, Earthways Center and the Lawrence Group. Last Thursday, the program, which was inspired by the Garbage Wall and formulated to teach sustainable design, drew to a close.

For the final session, representatives from the partnering organizations met with the students in their computer lab to discuss what was accomplished over the past few months. Everyone sat in a circle and took turns explaining what they learned. Afterwards, the class filled out surveys on the computers, as I pulled a few students out into the hallway for some digital feedback. Here is what those students had to say:

One of the key players for the CCC program was Teaching Artist Jackie Masei. In the following video, she describes a session on “building sustainable communities,” as the students work with one another to arrange models of communities out of random objects given to them. You can tell in the 2-minute clip that those kids have a lot of energy; it’s nice to know they may be championing green construction in the future.

Tuesday morning, students from a Construction Careers Center shop class toured Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark for the first time. They have been hearing about the exhibition for months. Last fall, while requesting garbage donations, Jenny Murphy and Lisa Harper Chang visited CCC, a construction-focused charter school, to talk about Gordon Matta-Clark’s work and sustainable design. Jane Crawford made a special appearance at the school during the week the Wall was constructed.

In early February of this year, the Pulitzer, along with the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Earthways Center and the Lawrence Group, began the current program. Representatives from each organization and a teaching artist have been meeting with the class for lessons on community building, sustainability and design. The students are planning with their teacher to eventually build their own version of the Garbage Wall.

Faydreauna, a student at Construction Careers Center, shares her observations on Garbage Wall.

With an influx of admitted students interested in the relationship between arts and social work coupled with the partnership between GWB and the Pulitzer Foundation maturing, CAI’s inception seems to be written in the stars. CAI’s mission explores building awareness of the role of art in social work and public health practice by creating community connections and providing educational opportunities.

Included in the mission, though not explicitly stated, will be a specially appointed member to serve as liaison between CAI and the Pulitzer. This student member will serve as special appointee to CAI and co-currently serve as the practicum student at the Pulitzer. This specialized appointment will keep GWB’s student body abreast of Pulitzer events and pursue active engagement between both parties. With a strong mission, an impressive future event line-up, and planned sustainability, CAI is opening doors for a renewed discussion of the intersection of art and social work. And although CAI is up and running, there are still challenges to tackle, including many that cannot be undertaken in a single semester.

For many there is a struggle to identify what the intersection of art and social work actually is. And is this intersection restricted to clinical or traditional social work practice? Is there future growth potential for social work in art institutions like the Pulitzer? And in anticipation of the Pulitzer’s panel discussion: is there is a place for art in community development?

Whew.  Our posting on 2buildings1blog this month has slowed, but our overall blogging activities are currently at full steam.  We’ve launched a website for Transformation – the community programming organized in conjunction with the Matta-Clark exhibition (which you can also explore online here).   A few highlights:

The Panel Series:  We’ve organized a panel discussion each month to explore topics related to Matta-Clark’s work within the context of St. Louis.  The key question we’ll address in each panel: “How do communities evolve and in what ways can their members guide the process?”  Within this online section we’ll feature interviews with the panelists, research info related to the topic, and full audio from the discussion shortly afterward.  I also attempt (key word) to live tweet each panel (http://twitter.com/thepulitzer).  The next panel just happens to be tomorrow (Oh! You’re in luck! And it’s free!).

Local Artists:  This is where the bulk of the blogging happens.  We’re documenting the three artist-run projects throughout the course of Transformation – hear updates from the artists, watch videos of the classes, even watch DIY videos to learn some of the skills yourself, and generally stay up-to-date as each project evolves.

Your St. Louis:  Definitely the most interactive of all the sections.  We’re posting candid interviews with St. Louis residents, to help paint a fuller portrait of the community.  Show us your St. Louis by adding photos to our Flickr group.  Show off your favorite route, by creating a custom Google Map for others to use.  We want to showcase what St. Louis means to those of us who live here.

Forum:  We’re hoping this section will grow into a place for discussion.  Want to expand on ideas you heard in the panel?  Want to ask an artist a question about their project?  This is the place to do it!

This website will continue to grow and shift as the programming grows and shifts, and as always, we’d love to get your feedback.  Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

During my first shift as a Gallery Assistant at the Pulitzer, I rotated into the Entrance Gallery and was confronted by Garbage Wall.

After spending the last month and a half collecting this garbage from around St. Louis, I stood there and realized how little time I had spent with the finished piece.

My eyes scanned over the objects in the wall, and I recognized all of them! At the sight of each piece of garbage, I was taken back to a day in the collection process. I spotted the section of a brick wall that students at Wash U found during our neighborhood clean-up, caution tape that was left in a donation box in the art room at Metro High School, and shoes collected from a local thrift store’s dumpster. I remembered touching each object (with gloves of course) as I moved it from a school, curb, or dumpster, into my truck bed, and finally into the workshop where Garbage Wall was constructed. I felt lucky to have had this experience that connected me to the piece in a very unique and exciting way.

As I stood in my GA position, I discovered how almost every visitor also developed a personal connection with the Wall. Visitors spent a lot of time trying to discern what each object was and making connections between the objects in the wall and those they own or those they have thrown away. A group of three women spent at least five minutes walking around the piece pointing out objects and telling stories. One of the women told her two friends how she used to have a pair of diving fins but lent them to her grandson who was going snorkeling while on vacation with his girlfriend. Pointing to a sneaker with The Misfits skeleton printed on it, a young woman told her mom that she used to have that exact pair of shoes. One man pointed at a computer keyboard and swore it was just like one he had at home. Another visitor stood in front of Garbage Wall and exclaimed, “Looks like you guys went through my trash. This all looks like my garbage!”

Upon hearing her observation, my mind fresh with memories of a month spent traveling around St. Louis collecting garbage, I thought to myself, “It just might be.”

With the opening of Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition fast approaching, I am in anxious anticipation. For two months I have identified and connected Matta-Clark’s work to my field of study, social work, and my passion, social justice. Matta-Clark’s work allows us to explore new avenues of social change. Re-thinking. Re-using. Re-visioning. Re-newing. The work encourages us to re-visit our systems of value, our ability to make an impact, to hope and command change. We are asked to see our world a bit differently and acknowledge pieces of our world that frequently go forgotten. Matta-Clark was particularly drawn to the homeless population of his era. He sought to provide hope to those who had not been afforded or allowed it. He wanted to empower the homeless by re-thinking trash to create stable housing structures (e.g., the garbage walls). As a social worker, I am drawn to his work because he wished to address societal shortcomings through innovative approaches. Matta-Clark questioned societal norms and demanded change (visually, structurally, etc.). Perhaps we can renew our thoughts of social activism by way of transformation.–Emily Augsburger

Emily Augsburger is a practicum student from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University.

This in no way diminishes my excitement about our upcoming exhibition, Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark, and the promise of the variety of interactions and opportunities the exhibition inspires. The work for Matta-Clark has already begun, as you’ve been reading about in this blog recently, but now you have a chance to come learn more about our upcoming exhibition, play with building a garbage wall yourself, and see the potential in trash by turning discarded newspaper into fun and functional items.

We will be hosting a table at the Earthways Green Homes Festival in Grand Center this Saturday, September 26. Our table will be open from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (the festival continues through 6:00 p.m.), and we are very excited to share with you information about Gordon Matta-Clark and our plans for the exhibition, including the Garbage Wall. So please come by and see us, say hello, and bring home a handmade kite, paper, or a seed planter as a souvenir and a reminder to come back and see us beginning October 30!

Loyola Academy students pose in front of their simulated wall of garbage.

Yesterday, Jenny, practicum student Emily Augsburger, and I rode in Jenny’s gold truck to Loyola Academy, a nearby all-boys school, to spread the word about Garbage Wall.  We hauled bins of junk and a six-foot-tall Plexiglas box with us.

In the art room, Jenny announced to a table of middle school boys the upcoming exhibition, asked if they knew what “alchemy” was, and then connected the term to Matta-Clark’s transformative art. She prompted the class to hypothesise how a 2’x2’ mock-up of Garbage Wall, left in the classroom the day before, had been built. Then the class thought of more ways to renew trash.

Some students casually rested their heads on the table in front of them, but they all readily chimed in and paid attention when others spoke. Still, after we paraded outside for the kids to simulate their own garbage wall, the adults truly witnessed unbridled energy, as the students, wearing blue latex gloves, eagerly explored the junk bins.

“So what do you think of this project?” I asked one boy, who had been pretending his gloves made him a superhero.

“It’s fun,” he replied, “I wish we could glue it together.”

Melba, the art teacher, who the Pulitzer collaborated with for the Community Light Project, assured her pupil that the class would get their chance to use elements of Garbage Wall in one of their upcoming assignments.

When Claire told me Urban Studio Cafe was about to have its soft opening two weeks ago, it was clear we needed to follow up and see how work at the Pulitzer prepared her for this new venture. What’s more, she needed a taste tester for barista training, and I wanted to do my part by trying a surplus latte.

About two miles from the Pulitzer, Urban Studio Café sits around the corner from Crown Candy, in Crown Village, the site of significant revitalization efforts. The cafe was birthed by what was just “the Urban Studio,” a facilitator of art workshops for kids in Old North. With profits from sandwiches and coffee drinks, these programs will continue, and at the same time, the cafe will provide a common space for the neighborhood. (Read the cafe’s goals on its website.)

Approaching the entrance, you see a poster taped to the storefront window, which was given to Claire by our community engagement coordinator, Lisa Harper Chang. It reads, ”How to Build Community,” with a list of maxims that pretty much sum up what the café is about (besides delicious lattes).

To practice ”ask a question” and “know your neighbors,” I asked Claire and her crew what they were doing August 27:

The basic strategy for this blog is to offer some background information and updates related to the event at this month’s conclusion. Throughout August, we’ll sprinkle a few words on Ovid here, some on Wtewael there, and tie everything together with the narration of Hannah, as she’s the event’s manager. But like other aspects of the laboratorial Pulitzer, the blog doesn’t have a cookie-cutter recipe, which makes me, as a web communications assistant using an ever-changing form of documentation, wonder what exactly this web page should be made of.  

The Pulitzer has a few other web sites/blogs with the same layout, such as Let’s Look, Sorrento Springs, the French Program, but if you look at those pages linked to on our Collaborative Programming page, you’ll see that the events or programs are different from one another and have been documented in diverse ways. The French Program, periodic visits from Lindenwood, can be posted about per visit. The Sorrento Springs trip was a one-time occurrence and written about from various witnesses’ perspectives.

Now when it comes to A Marathon Metamorphoses, an event which will last just one weekend but include people from all over St. Louis and span art forms and areas of study, we’re working with a whole other animal. What should be recorded in the event planning? How do we make the page worthy in itself aside from the event? Does that matter? How do we tell people about Ovid et cetera without becoming too “educational” and departing “blog”? What will readers want to know? What will the pace be?